


My self, in all but name

by KeybladeCryptography



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Post-Canon, Read with whatever shipping goggles you'd like, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeybladeCryptography/pseuds/KeybladeCryptography
Summary: As Roxas adjusts to a peaceful life, he has some doubts about his name.
Relationships: Hayner & Olette & Pence & Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas & Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	My self, in all but name

Roxas sits on the curb, skateboard clutched to his chest, watching the sunset. It’s a lot lower than the clock tower, so he doesn’t have to worry about falling. Pence is talking about something or another with Olette, beyond his or Hayner’s understanding . . . something about Java? Isn’t that what they sell up at the little café across town in Sunset Hill? He can feel Hayner’s coffee-colored gaze flickering between the unintelligible conversation and the back of Roxas’s neck and the sensation of being watched makes him jumpy, makes him want to summon the keyblade and knock him aside and run, run away from all he’s ever known, run away from those yellowgreenorangeblueyellow eyes through the rain until he can’t run anymore and he’s finally safe and free and himself.

“Roxas?” Hayner asks, with the uncharacteristic softness he’s adopted for his friend’s sake. It doesn’t suit him, taking sandpaper to the rough edges of his boyhood in an effort to accomodate someone who’s grown up too fast yet not at all, but Roxas appreciates it nonetheless. Still, Hayner remains safely a few feet away because he’s learned to sense the tension coiled in Roxas’s muscles, learned that sometimes Roxas still attacks if he’s startled. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just . . . hard. (It’s hard knowing that his friends don’t trust him not to hurt them. It’s harder knowing that they’re right.

“I’m not him,” Roxas growls, loud enough to silence Pence’s complaints about compilers and startle Olette into dropping her coin purse. Even through the barrier of carefully stitched fabric, Roxas can hear the clink of metal colliding with the cobblestone and he shoots upright, ready to bolt. He settles back down, slumping back onto the pavement when Olette started rubbing small circles on his back like she does with her three little brothers and her little sister. He sets his skateboard down and lowers his head between his knees and tries to breathe.

It’s nice to be comforted, to have people who believe in his heart and his ability to feel hurt enough to even try. It’s nice to have his own body to feel the warmth of Olette’s palm and the sun and his reddened cheeks. Those feelings, they belong to him and no one else. Like his skateboard and his Gummi phone. Like his friends, his real, living, breathing friends made out of flesh and blood, not data. Like the family he found and helped create and his room in the cozy-crowded apartment they share across the street from the sandlot where Roxas won the Struggle for real last month.

“We know,” Hayner says, without asking what he means. He doesn’t need to anymore. Roxas fidgets. “You’re you. You’re Roxas.”

“No,” Roxas says.

“No?” all three of his friends ask, in perfect unison like the triplets on that terrible (hilarious) sitcom Isa keeps watching and Roxas is too cool to enjoy.

Roxas sits up and Olette flinches a little but she doesn’t move. He rubs at his eyes. He’s not crying. Yet. “I’m not-” Not what? He can’t quite place it, can’t identify what’s wrong with Hayner’s reassurance. “I’m not-”

And then it hits him, what he’s rejecting.

Roxas isn’t proud to admit that he can be a little slow when it comes to “recognizing his feelings”, but in his defense, he hasn’t existed for very long and most of that time was spent believing he didn’t have any. (And also that that existence technically wasn’t existence at all, but the one time he asked Even about that left him with a headache for three days straight so he’s not even going to try to wrap his around it.) He’d say he’s pretty well-adjusted, all things considered.

“I’m not Roxas,” he says. He cringes. Come to think of it, that sounds pretty dumb, doesn’t it? Who else could he possibly be? Well, besides S- No. No, they’ve talked about that.

“Who are you then?” Hayner asks. Pence catches Roxas’s gaze and nods at him and Roxas knows he gets it, kind of. The reasoning is different though.

“No, I mean-” He’s not sure he has the words for this, not right away, but maybe he can find them if he calms down. Deep breaths, like Saï- Isa taught him. As he’s breathing, Roxas looks around. The sunset, the lamp post, Hayner, Pence, and Olette. Give. He runs his fingertips over the bricks, his jacket, the coin purse, and the friendship bracelet Sora made for _everyone_. That’s four. His own breathing, the ice cream truck music in the distance, and Hayner’s voice. Three. Pence’s obsolete programming manual he got from the used bookstore and Olette’s perfume, a birthday gift from last month. Two. He pops a piece of gum in his mouth. Citrus Explosion. One.

“Xemnas.” It takes him another moment. Breathe. “Xemnas is the one who named me. After Sora. Like how Lea became Axel.”

It clicks. “Oh,” Olette says. She bends down to hug him and it’s a little awkward but he leans into it, because her big family has given her plenty of hugging experience.

Pence sits down beside him and takes his hand, squeezing because it’s grounding. “You don’t feel like your name is actually yours.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a really good way of putting it. Thanks.”

Pence smiles. “I’ve been there,” he says and he has, before he and Roxas were really friends. He trusted Roxas enough to tell him, even though Pence hadn’t known him then and Roxas is filled with warmth at the memory, how Pence came over for dinner that night and brought candy from the store his aunt runs and the shocked look on Pence’s face when Axel said “same, kid.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Roxas says. Would Sora be offended if he changed his name? It’s not that he doesn’t love Sora, because he does, from the bottom of his heart. Being named after someone as bright and selfless and heroic as him should be an honor, shouldn’t it? Didn’t Hayner say he’s named after his grandfather? He really doesn’t know how these kinds of things work.

“Well,” Pence says. “You can try going by different names until you find something that clicks. Your name is something that says who you are, all in one word. So it should be something you like.”

“How will I know?”

Pence laughs. “That sounded really dramatic, like something out of a soap opera. You’ll know. When people started calling me Pence, it was like the first time people actually saw who I was and were speaking to me. In a good way, not a scary way. It might be different for you though.”

Roxas hums. “I’ll try. Really, thanks.”

Pence waves it off. “Hey, no problem man. If you want to borrow my old name book, let me know and I’ll bring it over.”

Roxas smiles. “Think we can pick it up before going back to my place?”

“Sure!” Pence stands and reaches out to help him up and Olette backs away to trade her sneakers for her skates, lacing them with expert efficiency.

“Do you think Lea will start singing at the dinner table again?” Hayner asks, sounding appropriately terrified of this possibility. It’s not that he’s a bad singer, quite the opposite, but it’s just embarrassing for some reason, and his terrible song choices do not help matters.

Roxas grimaces as he considers the likelihood of certain doom. “I hope not. It makes Isa all sappy when he does for some reason.”

“Ewww!” all three of his friends say.

“Ew,” Roxas agrees. He stands on his skateboard, staring into the sunset. “Last one to Pence’s is a Dusk!” His foot slaps the street, echoing across the buildings and he takes off. Olette is hot on his heels. Hayner and Pence cry out after them but Roxas pays them no mind as the breeze hits him, filling his lungs and clearing his head. He’ll be okay, but he wants to talk to Sora.

* * *

Roxas drums his fingers on his stomach, trying to think, then stops abruptly. It’s distracting him from what he needs to say. “Sora,” he starts. Sora shifts slightly next to him and Roxas can feel him hum in acknowledgement, the vibration passing between them where their shoulders touch as they gaze up at the sky, squinting at the sun. It’s tranquil, despite the fact that neither of them are usually keen on staying still, but it can’t last much longer. Sora’s mom doesn’t like it when he’s out late, it makes her worry. Who can blame her? “I wanted to tell you something,” Roxas says.

Sora tilts his head to look at Roxas and Roxas twists to look back at him. Sora smiles. “Yeah, I figured. What is it?”

Roxas examines his Other. They have the same blue eyes and their faces look similar, but not the same. Close enough for the assumption of siblings, maybe, but not twins, and maybe not even that, since it’s only happened once. Their hair is different in cut and color and Sora’s skin is tanned from all the time he spends in the sun. He has far more freckles and they dress completely different. They look like two completely different people. Because they are. That’s what Sora always told him, even when he couldn’t believe it himself, so he’ll understand. “I’ve been thinking about changing my name,” Roxas says.

Sora, unaware of the gravity of the situation, keeps fiddling with a loose string on his shirt. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because I’m named after you.” The moment the words leave his mouth, the phrasing hits Roxas like the trolley around the Tram Common - if it could actually hit him, the automatic pedestrian detection system protects him. He sits upright and frantically waves his hands. Jazz hands, Olette said, but less jazzy and more panicky. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just-”

Sora sits up too and takes Roxas’s hands in his own before Roxas can accidentally hit him. He shakes, obviously trying not to laugh. “I know, I know what you meant. Chill.”

Roxas ducks his head. “Sorry.”

“Huh? Why are you sorry?”

“It’s just. Isn’t it supposed to be an honor or something, to be named after someone else if it’s a person you love or admire? People are named after other people all the time, right?” Roxas looks at where their fingers intertwine. They’re connected. Different though they may be, that will never change. What ties them together is unseverable. That’s fine. Roxas doesn’t want it to change, not anymore. Even though he remembers his days in the Organization and the simulated Twilight Town, it’s hard to imagine that there was ever a time he didn’t know Sora, that he didn’t have the chance to stand by Sora’s side. They’re both complete on their own, but having him near feels good. Icing on the cake.

Sora looks taken aback and Roxas worries he’s overwhelmed him. “I mean, I guess? But people change their names sometimes too, it’s not a big deal. Like, Isa changed his name then changed it back. Same with Even and Aeleus and Dilan and Ienzo and Lauriam and Elrena.”

“I can’t be called Sora, that’d be too confusing.”

“Yeah, probably. But if there’s something else you want to be called, it’s not like I’m going to be offended. You can do what you want, you just worry too much.”

“Yeah,” Roxas says. “Thanks, Sora.” He pauses a moment. “I definitely don’t get that from you, the worrying.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

“You know exactly what it means.”

Sora sticks his tongue out and Roxas does so back, until their limited attention spans make them forget why they’re doing it. Even if they did remember, they could never stay upset with each other anyway. Sora lets go of his hands and rests his head on Roxas’s shoulder. Roxas is starting to grow a little taller than Sora and he’s way too proud of it, not that it’s hard when Sora’s so short. Maybe if he drinks enough milk he can even be taller than Riku, though when he brought it up to Axel, he just laughed and told him to keep dreaming.

“So, what do you want to be called?” Sora asks.

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far ahead. I need to start flipping through the book Pence gave me.”

“Maybe something that starts with the letter ‘I’?”

“Why’s that?”

Sora looks at him like it should be obvious. “‘I’ for ‘ice cream’. Duh.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very serious,” Sora says, in the least serious voice possible. Roxas elbows him in the side and Sora whines. “Mean!”

Roxas rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t you have to go soon?”

“I can probably spare another five minutes before my mom lectures me? Oh, and she told me to invite you and Xion over soon. I think she likes Xion more than me, her own son.” Sora throws his hands up in the air and Roxas laughs.

“Can you blame her?”

“Not really. Xion is . . .”

“Xion,” Roxas concludes. Sora tries to nod in agreement without breaking the closeness between them. “Anyway, school starts again soon, so I think we can probably convince Axel and Isa to let us come the weekend before, but I’ll ask.”

“Cool. Text me.” Slowly, Sora gets up and he stretches, yawning. The perpetual sunset makes him glow gold, from the tips of his hair to where his sneakers meet the cement. Not that he needs the help, when he’s already so bright. He turns to help Roxas up before grabbing his skateboard, tucking it under his arm. He’s not very good at skating yet, but Roxas sees potential. He’ll get the hang of it soon enough. Of course, Roxas isn’t going to teach Sora everything he knows. He can’t let Sora be better than him. “Have a good night.”

“You too, Sora.”

Roxas hops on his skateboard and sets off in the opposite direction, taking a shortcut through the side street. He lets himself in and Isa tells him to wash up for dinner. He’s taken up cooking since recompletion, mostly because Roxas and Xion are busy catching up on their youth and Axel cannot be trusted in the kitchen. (They learned that the hard way.) He says it’s relaxing and he’s not half-bad at it, even if Roxas ends up passing his olives to Xion, who actually likes them. She’s weird like that. In bed that night, Roxas turns the lamp on and reaches for the name book. He skims through the pages until he lands on the section with names that start with the letter “I”.

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya, this was just a little idea I had before re:mind that wouldn't leave me alone. I'm actually pretty happy with how re:mind addressed the issue, but I remembered that this was a thing in my drafts and decided to finish it off and toss it up here. If you'd like, you can follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CrepusculeChaos).


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